Top 5 Wednesday: Series That Got Better!

Top 5 Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam @ Thoughts on Tomes and created by Lainey @ Ginger Reads Lainey. You can check out the group’s Goodreads page for this month’s topics!

I’m not much of a series reader I’m usually the kind of person that can start a ton of series and then not actually ever finish them. So this list was a little harder for me especially since I feel a lot of series really get worse the farther they go on for me, however, here are a few I felt got better!

5.) Uglies Series by Scott Westerfeld

I read this series such a long time ago but when I read the first book I honestly didn’t think much of it, it was okay. However, I decided to continue on and read “Pretties” and “Specials” as well and in my opinion both of those books were a lot better than “Uglies”. I never did read “Extras” but I don’t really feel like I need to either since it isn’t from Tally’s POV.

Would I still think this if I re-read these books now? Maybe but from what I remember when I was younger I thought the books got way better as they went!

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4.) Vampire Academy Series by Richelle Mead

Once again this was a series that I read when I was younger and thought it was amazing! Of course my opinion might change if I read them again now but I like to live in my nostalgia…..

The first couple of books in this series are kind of so, so there really isn’t anything too crazy special about them but as they go they get a lot more action, plot twists, and more interesting back stories!

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3.) The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater

This might be cheating since I haven’t actually finished the series! BUT I have read the first two books and I definitely loved “The Dream Thieves” even more than I loved “The Raven Boys” so I’m just kind of assuming the series will only continue to get better as well!

You can read my full review of “The Raven Boys” here.

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2.) The Winner’s Trilogy by Marie Rutkoski

Once again I haven’t fully completed this series but I’ve read the first two books just not the last! I was really leery with the first book since I wasn’t sure it was going to be good or not and I was actually really pleasantly surprised by it! So of course I devoured the second book which was EVEN BETTER than the first one! So I think it’s safe to say this is one of those series you should stick with after the first book.

You can read my full review of “The Winner’s Curse” here.

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1.) The Inkworld Trilogy

This is my most prime example of a series that gets WAAAAAY better as it goes, the jump in awesomeness from “Inkheart” to “Inkspell” is huge! While I did really like the first book I still wasn’t super impressed with it but since I already had the second book I pushed on anyways and I am so glad I did! “Inkspell” is ten times the fun with way more characters, magic, and world building! Then there’s “Inkdeath”……I didn’t know it could get any better than “Inkspell” but it did, there are so many plot twists and so much emotional turmoil! The ending was perfect though.

What are some series you think got better?

Do you agree or disagree with any of these series? Have you read any of them?

Are you big on finishing series or, like me, start them more than finish them?

Let me know in the comments!

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Loved Less Than Everyone Else

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jamie @ The Broke and the Bookish.

This week’s theme is books we either loved less or more than everyone else, pretty self explanatory. I, being the black sheep that I am, chose to go with books I loved less since that usually seems to be the way things go for me with more popular books.

As usual I’ll link up my full reviews to the titles!

10.) Truthwitch by Susan Dennard

This book was insanely hyped last year when it came out and so my expectations were pretty high for it and….it was not that great. It lacked world building and honestly I didn’t think anything was developed at all. There were elements I enjoyed but overall it was a disappointment.

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9.) Crimson Bound by Rosamund Hodge

So a TON of people love Rosamund Hodge’s books and they do sound amazing, I mean dark fairy tale retellings? Hell yes! Unfortunately this one was confusing, I spent a lot of my time completely lost as to what was going on and the characters were really flat. Maybe I’ll like her other books more but if they’re like this one I already know I won’t.

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8.) Shadow & Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Another extremely hyped book and series that I just did not love as much as everyone. I hated the main character and I felt there was a lack of world building. However, I thought Bardugo’s writing improved vastly with “Six of Crows” which I loved.

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7.) Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

I honestly think I should turn this rating from a 3 to a 2 since I really didn’t like this book all that much. Celaena was annoying and vain and not as badass as everyone makes her seem, also a lack of world building. Definitely a black sheep with this one since EVERYONE loves this series.

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6.) Cinder by Marissa Meyer

The Lunar Chronicles is another series that is wildly popular and for me “Cinder” was a big disappointment. My main problem was how predictable the story was but I am thinking about continuing the series.

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5.) The Crown’s Games by Evelyn Skye

Another book that got super hyped and was wildly disappointing for me. It was FULL of insta-love, an awful love triangle, and lack of world building once again (see a theme here for me?). Also the magical fight to the death was just a bunch of parlor tricks and no actual fighting occurred.

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4.) Soundless by Richelle Mead

I absolutely loved Mead’s Vampire Academy series so I was expecting to love her new standalone but I did not. Once again the complete lack of world building was the biggest reason I did not like this book.

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3.) Between The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Genevieve Tucholke

Seems a ton of people loved this book and while the writing is very beautiful I thought the characters were awful and idiotic, and the romance was also full of cliches.

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2.) These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly

I really wanted to like this book because EVERYONE loves it but it was just so slooooooow and boring for me. Seriously this book had no business being 500 pages….

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1.) Blackhearts by Nicole Castroman

Lots of people actually liked this book and I can see why like if you like historical fiction romances for the most part. However, for me I was expecting actual PIRATES since this is supposed to be about Blackbeard! Did I get pirates! No! I got zero pirates!

What books do you love more or less than everyone else?

Did you dislike any of these books too? Or like them?

Let me know in the comments and feel free to link up your TTT as well! 

Top 5 Wednesday: Authors I’d Like To Meet At BookCon

Top 5 Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam @ Thoughts on Tomes and created by Lainey @ Ginger Reads Lainey. You can check out the group’s Goodreads page for this month’s topics!

This week’s topic is “Authors You’d Want To Meet at Book Expo America & BookCon” which I unfortunately am not attending either but I can dream! Maybe one of these years I can actually attend.

I’m only doing authors appearing at Bookcon because the list for BEA was a little tedious to look through. You can find a full list of the authors appearing at BEA and BookCon HERE and HERE.

5.) Leigh Bardugo

While I have only read the first installment of Bardugo’s Grisha trilogy (so I’m not a die hard Grisha fan) and “Six of Crows” as well I still would jump on the opportunity to meet her.

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4.) Kendare Blake

Love, love, loved her book “Anna Dressed In Blood” and I own its sequel as well as the first book in her other series “Antigoddess”, I also cannot wait for her new book “Three Dark Crowns” this fall! So many awesome books!

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3.) Richelle Mead

When I was younger Mead’s Vampire Academy series was everything to me, I adored it and meeting the architect of one of my favorite series would be amazing.

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2.) Jay Kristoff & Amie Kaufman

Two in one because they both wrote “Illuminae” which I freaking loved, I five starred the shit out of that book and I would love to meet the masterminds behind that awesome piece of science fiction!

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1.) Laini Taylor

Laini Taylor is amazing, she is a goddess of writing. Seriously, she is awesome I absolutely loved her books “Lips Touch: Three Times” and “Daughter of Smoke and Bone” and her writing is magical and beautiful. I would LOVE to meet her! I would probably scream in excitement.

Sorry for the short post guys but there’s only so much I can say about authors I’ve never met and how much I love their books!

Are you attending BEA or BookCon? (If so, I’m jealous)

What authors will you be meeting or want to meet if you went?

Did any of these authors make your list as well?

Let me know in the comments and feel free to leave a link to your T5W as well!

Book Review: Soundless by Richelle Mead

 

In a village without sound…

For as long as Fei can remember, no one in her village has been able to hear. Rocky terrain and frequent avalanches make it impossible to leave the village, so Fei and her people are at the mercy of a zipline that carries food up the treacherous cliffs from Beiguo, a mysterious faraway kingdom.

When villagers begin to lose their sight, deliveries from the zipline shrink. Many go hungry. Fei and all the people she loves are plunged into crisis, with nothing to look forward to but darkness and starvation.

One girl hears a call to action…

Until one night, Fei is awoken by a searing noise. Sound becomes her weapon.

She sets out to uncover what’s happened to her and to fight the dangers threatening her village. A handsome miner with a revolutionary spirit accompanies Fei on her quest, bringing with him new risks and the possibility of romance. They embark on a majestic journey from the peak of their jagged mountain village to the valley of Beiguo, where a startling truth will change their lives forever…

And unlocks a power that will save her people.

I don’t even know where to start with this review to be honest. Lots of other reviewers I trust TOLD me it was disappointing and did I listen? No, I did not. I loved Mead’s Vampire Academy series so I thought well maybe I’ll love this one anyways. Did I love it anyways? No, I did not.

Trust me when I say I REALLY wanted to like this book, and actually finishing this book seems to be quite the feat since most people DNFed it.

This is going to be a long rant….

The first and most important point I would like to make about this book is that it’s supposed to have tons of Chinese folklore and mythology in it, and it failed on that part. It failed hard. When I was 5 years old I dressed up as Mulan for Halloween and I was more Chinese than this book. There is absolutely NO Chinese folklore or mythology added to this story at all. There are mythical creatures called pixius that are mentioned so briefly I don’t think that even really counts.

Seriously this book should be TEEMING with Asian culture and it isn’t. The only thing that’s remotely Asian about this book are the names. That’s it! This is one of the most disappointing factors about this book, since I really expected the culture/folklore to be more developed and take center stage.

There was no world building to speak of and if you’re going to try and make your selling point “A new fantasy steeped in Chinese folklore” then you need to actually provide those two things. Seriously, not only was there none of the folklore but there was no fantasy aspects either. If you’re going to claim something as a fantasy you need to build your world! Convince me this is a fantasy!

Not to mention how slow and tedious the pacing was, this book is under 300 pages it should be a QUICK read. It really wasn’t though, the plot dragged on and only got exciting at the very end! If I could just take the ending of this book and extend it out, I could definitely rate this book higher. The whole thing was just…..dull and unexciting.

Speaking of the that….Remember those pixius I mentioned briefly earlier? No? Kind of? Yeah that’s the same feeling you get in the book as well. They were mentioned like two times and all of a sudden out of nowhere they become a super important plot point? The story was all over the place as far as that’s concerned…..

Here’s another thing that REALLY bothered me: The people in the village are ALL DEAF, okay? So when you’re doing your “dialogue” I don’t want you to say they “said” something when they’re actually signing it to each other. It makes no sense! They aren’t speaking to each other they’re signing! I really don’t think I’m being all that picky about this one, normally I can ignore that kind of stuff but this was actually bugging me a ton while reading.

This book is also supposed to be a stand alone novel, no series here folks. It did not feel like it though, ultimately the ending was not very satisfying and I don’t really feel like it ended at all. It just kind of stopped in a convenient place. Like I said earlier if I could extend the ending it could have been a much better reading experience.

So what did I like, right?

Well not a whole lot actually. Mead’s writing style has always been a favorite of mine and it was apparent in this book but definitely not up to snuff. She was still able to write some scenes that made me….emotional. Trust me it was the writing, not the characters.

That’s honestly all that I remotely enjoyed.

Fei is the main character and she’s about as dull as a butter knife. No seriously there’s nothing exciting about her at all. She got put into some pretty intense situations and I felt like she never really REACTED to anything. She really lacked any sort of personality, she wasn’t fun to read about. I mean her job is to observe and record but come on girl you can actually DO some stuff every once in a while!

Li Wei is the love interest and pretty much the only other character in this book, if Fei is as dull as a butter knife then Li Wei is about as dull as a rock. There’s nothing charming about him at all, I don’t understand why Fei was all moony-eyed over him.

As far as any secondary characters go, they are all so unimportant in this book I won’t even bother mentioning them. Which is disappointing because I love good secondary characters and this book lacked them COMPLETELY. Anybody that wasn’t Fei and Li Wei took a major back seat in the plot.

It’s pretty much got all of your basic romance cliches. Insta-love and forbidden love mostly. Fei and Li Wei basically insta-loved the hell out of each other when they were kids and now that they’re all grown up cannot be together. Why? Because of the village’s caste system, Fei is an artist and Li Wei is a miner. Therefore their love is FORBIDDEN. Great, right?

I really liked the fact that they loved each other at a young age so the insta-love was less over-whelming and that’s pretty much all I liked about it.

Count me majorly disappointed with this one. I LOVED Mead’s Vampire Academy series and therefore (against my better judgement) I wanted to love this one too. Unfortunately this book did NOT want me to love it.

I can’t honestly say I can, but if you have loved Mead’s other works and can look past the horrendous lack of any sort of Asian culture, go right ahead and read it.

Links: Goodreads / Amazon

Black Friday Bookhaul

I’m FINALLY posting my meager bookhaul from last weekend! It’s just three books but hey that’s cause enough for me to do a post about them, lets you guys know what to be looking for as far as reviews go.

Not to mention how excited I am to read these books soon!

Without further ado here’s my Black Friday Bookhaul!

1.) Soundless by Richelle Mead

I’ve heard a lot of mixed reviews on this one so I was a little leery about purchasing it. However, in the end my love for Richelle Mead and pretty covers forced me into buying it. I absolutely adored Mead’s Vampire Academy series and I’m hoping I’ll love this as well.

Also how could I say no to a SIGNED COPY?

 

2.) Da Vinci’s Tiger by L.M. Elliot

This is one I’ve actually been looking forward to reading for a while, I’m a sucker for anything in historical Italy especially the Renaissance era. Let’s just say I played a little too much Assassin’s Creed II….

Anyways I was IN LOVE with this book’s previous cover and I’m heartbroken it got changed to this but if the book is as good as I think it will be then I’ll live.

See? Isn’t this so much better!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.) The Young Elites by Marie Lu

Now an interesting blurb and a lot of hype is what first led me to this book. My library has an ebook copy of it but it was ALWAYS checked out and I’m not a patient lady. So I decided for $10 I’d just buy my own copy. If it’s as good as people say it is I won’t be disappointed even though I wasn’t really  a big fan of Lu’s other book “Legend”. I am a fan of fantasy though so hopefully I’ll love this one!

So that wraps up my Black Friday Bookhaul! Thanks for reading guys! Hopefully I can get around to reading these bad boys soon.

What did you guys get this last Black Friday? Are there any books on here you’re waiting to read as well? Let me know in the comments!

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Finished Series I Have YET to Finish

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week is “Ten Finished Series I Have YET to Finish”, this one will be kind of a challenge for me since I think most of my series aren’t actually complete yet……

10.) The Divergent Series by Veronica Roth

I read “Divergent” long before it was going to be a movie, and I moderately enjoyed it. I bought “Insurgent” the second book in the trilogy a while ago on my Nook and I just haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. I’ll finish this series but not anytime soon, it just doesn’t take priority over other books I have yet to read.

9.) The House of Night Series by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

I quit reading this series after “Destined” which is the 9th book, I honestly can’t tell you why I even bothered continuing after I read the first book. I hate this series, it’s just awful. Maybe the only reason I bothered reading them was because I was a young teenager and my cousin was reading them also. I don’t know. I don’t really think I’ll finish this series……

8.) The Caster Chronicles by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

I actually really like the Caster Chronicles, I just haven’t gotten around to reading the third book in the series, “Beautiful Chaos” which I bought on my Nook and still haven’t read. Even though I like this series it isn’t a priority for me, I’ll finish it here……eventually.

7.) The Rot & Ruin Series/The Benny Imura Series by Jonathon Maberry

I LOVE these books! I loved “Rot & Ruin” and I literally stayed up all night finishing it’s sequel “Dust & Decay” but I just haven’t had the time to start reading the third book in the series, “Flesh & Bone” I honestly don’t even have a good reason, I just haven’t read it yet. I bought it on my Nook and haven’t touched it, are you beginning to see a pattern here? I tend to forget about books on my Nook Color.

6.) The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo

Any of you who have read any of my blog posts will know that I didn’t think “Shadow and Bone” was that great and that I loath the protagonist, Alina Starkov. However, I really want this series to get better so I will have to suck it up and buy the second book in the Grisha Trilogy, “Siege and Storm”. Hopefully Alina will also suck it up and quit being such a damsel.

5.) The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien

“The Lord of the Rings” is very tedious, reading all of these books is the same thing as taking the journey to destroy the One Ring in the fiery depths of Mt. Doom yourself. Seriously, it takes a lot of dedication. Dedication that I, as of right now, lack. I own the entire series and will get around to finishing it….right after I finish every other book I have….

4.) The Heroes of Olympus Series by Rick Riordan

Now I know this is supposed to be series I haven’t finished YET, but I need to include this one. I haven’t actually started the Heroes of Olympus series yet, I own the first one and have yet to read it. It’s basically a spin off of Percy Jackson & the Olympians so since I read all of those I am putting this on my TTT.

3.) The Last Apprentice Series by Joseph Delaney

This series is fantastic, and more people should definitely read it. I started reading these when the movie, “Seventh Son” was announced and the movie was OK but COMPLETELY different than the books (which obviously are better). I will continue on with “Night of the Soul Stealer” as soon as I can, since they’re very easy reads.

2.) The Shattered Sea Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie

I recently read “Half a King” the first book in the series and LOVED it, so “Half the World” is definitely one of my priorities…. I feel bad making other books on this list wait, but it really is that good of a series.

1.) The Bloodlines Series by Richelle Mead

When I heard there was a new spin off series of “Vampire Academy” I had to check it out, I loved that series and I love Mead’s writing style. I finished the first book and I’ve been lollygagging for too long. I have “The Golden Lily” and I need to finish it, because this series just got completed this year.

Alas, so many books and so little time…….

So do any of you have any unfinished series in common with mine?

Or have you completed any of these and want to convince me which to prioritize?